Nipponica

In 1998, a Japanese man was stripped naked and left alone in an almost-empty apartment as part of a challenge for a reality TV show.

Tomoaki Hamatsu, known as Nasubi, was left with only a pen, some blank postcards, a telephone and rack full of magazines. But he was not there to read. The concept of the show was to see if a human being could survive on competition prizes alone. In order to win the challenge, the value of the prizes he won had to reach a certain financial threshold - 1m yen, around £6,000 at the time.

He would not emerge for 15 months, following a gradual descent into depression and mania, driven by hunger and isolation. Nearly three decades later, Nasubi's ordeal is being revisited as part of a new film that has just screened at the Sheffield Documentary Festival.

I just got a chance to watch this last night and it was a thoughtfully produced story covering many issues in Japanese society include school bullying, mental illness, and the exploitative entertainment industry. Nasubi tells his story well and eloquently explains the suffering that he endured. A great watch and a good historical document for those that never got to see 電波少年 in person.

In the space of just a few years, the stand-up comic went from celebrated to shunned. Woman Rush Hour — his manzai comedy duo with Paradise Nakagawa — saw their annual TV appearances plummet from 250 to just one.

The reason wasn’t too hard to deduce. In 2017, Muramoto had a political awakening during a trip to an area hit by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. Suddenly, his routines became consciousness-raising tirades, exploring and exploding social taboos and scandals du jour while occasionally remembering to throw in a good gag.

Really curious to see this as I am not too versed in Japanese comedy. The review paints Nakagawa as a genuine guy that is just trying to help people think about issues using comedy as a tool, much like Carlin et. al. in the western context. And doing so in good faith, unlike some.

Set in pandemic-era Tokyo, the film focuses on a young woman (Yukino Takahashi) whose boyfriend has absconded, leaving her broke and feeling broken. She drifts into sex work, taking the professional name Kotone.

She quickly transforms from a lost-looking waif wandering down Kabukicho streets to a wised-up sex worker who takes nothing and no one at face value. She works at a “cafe” where masked women sit staring at their smartphones while men on the other side of a large window make their selection, which a male employer conveys to the chosen woman. The newly formed couple then retires to a private room.